The multibillion-dollar banana company pleaded guilty earlier this year to making $1.7 million in illegal payments to a right-wing Colombian paramilitary group from 1997 to 2004. Until now, three of its officers were under investigation for authorizing and approving the payments to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as AUC, after federal prosecutors warned them in April 2003 that such bribes violated the nation's anti-terrorism laws.
"The United States gave serious consideration to bringing additional charges in this matter," prosecutors wrote in a memo filed in court yesterday. "In the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the United States has decided not do so."
Of the 10 company officials with potential liability, those most under scrutiny were former Chiquita chief executive Cyrus Freidheim, former general counsel Robert Olson and former board member Roderick M. Hills, according to sources close to the probe. They and Chiquita had argued that the three men, who had disclosed the "protection money" payments to Justice officials, kept them going while awaiting advice that never came from then-Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff and then-Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson.
If this had been a Muslim that had sent funds unwittingly to a charity that later supported terrorists in the Middle East, you can bet that person would have been sent straight to Guantanimo.
Political donations really do pay off!! Pay to play is alive and well in the United States.
Why is it that those who point to the lack of attack never mention that we were not attacked on American soil by radical Islam from February 1993 until 9/11/01. There is still two years to go to match that time frame but worldwide terrorist attacks have increased dramatically. You think the war in Iraq has nothing to do with that?
Hundreds of U.S.-led troops have launched an offensive against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan, while a bomb attack near the capital killed three German nationals, officials said Wednesday.
The offensive involving ground troops and airstrikes in Tora Bora region of eastern Nangarhar province is targeting "hundreds of foreign fighters" who are using dug-in fighting positions, said coalition spokeswoman Capt. Vanessa Bowman.
We really need to wonder why this and why now? According to reports the Taliban recently have abandoned training camps in the region and some have speculated it is because of an imminent attack on western interests.
Could the Democratic approval of the domestic spying bill been the result of some sort of intelligence that something may happen? If they were given intelligence that an attack was highly possible, they would not have wanted to be seen as inhibiting any effort to stop an attack.
I was contacted by Immigration Orange which is a blog that focuses on Immigration issues. Immigrant Orange focuses on migration countries and the inequality that forces people to leave their homes and loved ones for the hope of a better life in the United States. For many this journey is a matter of life and death.
Each country has its own set of problems that force its poor citizens to cross our borders illegally. I do not condone illegal immigration but I also do not blame the immigrant. I blame the home country where corruption and inequities have made daily life unbearable. There will never be an end to the problem of illegal immigrants within the United States until our government tries to understand why they come and takes diplomatic steps to change the economic policies of our southern neighbors. It must also tackle the massive corruption that is so pervasive in these countries. The problem is how do you tackle corruption there when it is also rampant right here.
Unfortunately United States firms help to destabilize countries to our south by not providing fair wages or decent working conditions. The North American Free Trade Agreement's only winners are the corporations. Citizens in both Mexico and the United States have not benefited. Manufacturing jobs that were once the backbone of the American Middle Class are now low wage jobs in Mexico under awful working conditions that have contributed to ever growing corporate profits and ever growing human misery.
Chiquita Brands International took this even further and funded terrorist activities within Colombia. I was stunned when I read this article.
Colombia's attorney general said Tuesday that his office would try to seek the extradition of eight executives from Chiquita Brands International, the Ohio banana company that last week admitted to paying $1.7 million to right-wing death squads that have killed thousands in this country's long civil conflict.
In a deal with the Justice Department, Chiquita last week agreed to plead guilty to doing business with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a coalition of paramilitary groups whose members have massacred peasants and murdered leftist activists for years. In agreeing to pay a $25 million fine, the company characterized the payments as extortion that helped protect banana workers in the northwest Uraba region near the border with Panama.
On its face those claims are bad but when you know the rest of the story you realize that the company didn't just pay extortion they helped arm this very group of killers.
Iguaran said that among the issues the attorney general's office is investigating in the Chiquita case is the November 2001 unloading of Central American assault rifles and ammunition at the Caribbean dock operated by the firm's Colombian subsidiary, Banadex. The smuggling operation was detailed in a 2003 report by the Organization of American States.
The Justice Department did not deal with the smuggling operation in its plea deal. Chiquita admitted making payments to the paramilitaries from 1997 to 2004, which Iguaran said violated Colombian law. On Sept. 10, 2001, the State Department declared the AUC, as the paramilitary coalition is known, an international terrorist group, making it a violation of U.S. law for a U.S. company to conduct business with the organization.
"This was a criminal relationship," Iguaran said. "Money and arms and, in exchange, the bloody pacification of Uraba."
On April 24, 2003, a board member of Chiquita International Brands disclosed to a top official at the Justice Department that the king of the banana trade was evidently breaking the nation's anti-terrorism laws.
Roderick M. Hills, who had sought the meeting with former law firm colleague Michael Chertoff, explained that Chiquita was paying "protection money" to a Colombian paramilitary group on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations. Hills said he knew that such payments were illegal, according to sources and court records, but said that he needed Chertoff's advice.
Chiquita, Hills said, would have to pull out of the country if it could not continue to pay the violent right-wing group to secure its Colombian banana plantations. Chertoff, then assistant attorney general and now secretary of homeland security, affirmed that the payments were illegal but said to wait for more feedback, according to five sources familiar with the meeting.
Justice officials have acknowledged in court papers that an official at the meeting said they understood Chiquita's situation was "complicated," and three of the sources identified that official as Chertoff. They said he promised to get back to the company after conferring with national security advisers and the State Department about the larger ramifications for U.S. interests if the corporate giant pulled out overnight.
After reading this, my question was why the Justice Department went so easy on Chiquita and did not include the smuggling of arms to terrorists but instead just focused on doing business with this group. Could the answer to that question be found in the political donations of Chiquita Executives? Carl Lindner, the former chairman was a Bush pioneer in 2004 which means he raised over $200,000.00 and Cyrus Friedheim, the former CEO, has donated extensively to Republican causes. Check out Open Secrets and see for yourself.
Do you think that the situation would have been called "complicated" if the one paying the money was Muslim and the one receiving it was either Hamas or Hezbollah? It is incidents such as these that take away any credibility our country has on terrorism issues. We do nothing about Saudi Arabia which funds terrorism worldwide and more specifically funds the Sunni insurgents within Iraq. We do nothing while Pakistan harbors al-Qaeda and in the end we will do very little to Chiquita who helped arm a violent terrorist group within Colombia.
Chiquita claims they paid this to protect their workers but I think we all know they paid to protect their profits.
The arms and aid package, which the officials said is to be announced on Monday, is part of a U.S. initiative to reassure worried allies in the Middle East that despite its troubles in Iraq, the United States remains committed to the region. It also is meant to send a signal of resolve to Iran's increasingly confident leaders.
The package also will include new weapons for the United Arab Emirates, another U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf, and both military and economic support to Egypt. Other details of the proposed arms sales weren't immediately available Friday.
Although it's likely to be controversial, the administration has decided to proceed with the sale and will compensate Israel — which seeks to maintain a "qualitative military edge" over its Arab neighbors — with military upgrades of its own, the officials said.
"All that has been sorted out," said a senior State Department official.
Israel has asked for access to the Air Force's most advanced fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor, and its stealth technology, which makes the aircraft more difficult to see on radar.
OK so lets examine this travesty in some detail. We are going to basically supply the whole region with weapons. Saudi Arabia is the country of origin of most of the suicide bombers within Iraq and is the known supplier of arms and money for the Sunni insurgents. Why would we even consider selling them any weapons? Money my friends, money. Now do you really feel safer?
How do we appease Israel for arming their neighbors, we arm them as well. This is foreign policy Bush style. Think of it this way, you look outside and see two neighborhood children fighting. The normal response would be to go and break up the fight. The Bush response to that same situation would be to go outside and give each of them a gun. When will this country demand their removal from power. They have destroyed our reputation and now want to arm the Muslim world. The same world they say is responsible for global terrorism. The war on terror just took on a whole new meaning.
Under the agreement, airlines flying from Europe to the United States are required to provide data related to these matters to U.S. authorities if it exists in their reservation systems. The deal allows Washington to retain and use it only "where the life of a data subject or of others could be imperiled or seriously impaired," such as in a counterterrorism investigation.
According to the deal, the information that can be used in such exceptional circumstances includes "racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership" and data about an individual's health, traveling partners and sexual orientation.
What does my sexual orientation have to do with anything? Will you be stopped from traveling if you have liberal political beliefs, are Muslim, or belong to a Union? How will they gather such information? Will I be forced to answer a series of questions or be charged with some crime if I refuse? How will they know if the answers are true?
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff praised the pact as an "essential screening tool for detecting potentially dangerous transatlantic travelers." If available at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Chertoff said, such information would have, "within a matter of moments, helped to identify many of the 19 hijackers by linking their methods of payment, phone numbers and seat assignments."
Mr. Chertoff is a complete fool. There were many warnings about the 9/11 hijackers while they were in the United States learning how to fly yet all those warnings were ignored. He would like us to believe that had they known their country of origin and religion and political views before that 9/11 could have been averted? The F.B.I. knew that men were learning to fly but not asking about how to land and they did nothing. They had F.B.I. informants living with some of the hijackers in San Diego and did nothing. Now we are supposed to believe that gathering all this personal information will somehow make us safer?
What happens to this data once it is collected? Will it be sold to insurance companies who will then deny health coverage based on a questionnaire necessary to fly? We are wading into very dangerous territory with agreements such as this. This is the way to limit your civil rights and bring us closer to a police state. The American people need to understand that giving up their liberties for security will mean you will have neither.
Thom Hartmann began his program on Thursday by reading from a new Executive Order which allows the government to seize the assets of anyone who interferes with its Iraq policies.
He then introduced old-line conservative Paul Craig Roberts -- a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan who has recently become known for his strong opposition to the Bush administration and the Iraq War -- by quoting the "strong words" which open Roberts' latest column: "Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran."
"I don't actually think they're very strong," said Roberts of his words. "I get a lot of flak that they're understated and the situation is worse than I say. ... When Bush exercises this authority [under the new Executive Order] ... there's no check to it. It doesn't have to be ratified by Congress. The people who bear the brunt of these dictatorial police state actions have no recourse to the judiciary. So it really is a form of total, absolute, one-man rule. ... The American people don't really understand the danger that they face."
Roberts said that because of Bush's unpopularity, the Republicans face a total wipeout in 2008, and this may be why "the Democrats have not brought a halt to Bush's follies or the war, because they expect his unpopular policies to provide them with a landslide victory in next year's election."
However, Roberts emphasized, "the problem with this reasoning is that it assumes that Cheney and Rove and the Republicans are ignorant of these facts, or it assumes that they are content for the Republican Party to be destroyed after Bush has his fling." Roberts believes instead that Cheney and Rove intend to use a renewal of the War on Terror to rally the American people around the Republican Party. "Something's in the works," he said, adding that the Executive Orders need to create a police state are already in place.
"The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists ... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," Roberts continued. "Chertoff has predicted them. ... The National Intelligence Estimate is saying that al Qaeda has regrouped. ... You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda's not going to do it, it's going to be orchestrated. ... The Republicans are praying for another 9/11."
Hartmann asked what we as the people can do if impeachment isn't about to happen. "If enough people were suspicious and alert, it would be harder for the administration to get away with it," Roberts replied. However, he added, "I don't think these wake-up calls are likely to be effective," pointing out the dominance of the mainstream media.
"Americans think their danger is terrorists," said Roberts. "They don't understand the terrorists cannot take away habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution. ... The terrorists are not anything like the threat that we face to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution from our own government in the name of fighting terrorism. Americans just aren't able to perceive that."
Roberts pointed out that it's old-line Republicans like himself, former Reagan associate deputy attorney general Bruce Fein, and Pat Buchanan who are the diehards in warning of the danger. "It's so obvious to people like us who have long been associated in the corridors of power," he said. "There's no belief in the people or anything like that. They have agendas. The people are in the way. The Constitution is in the way. ... Americans need to comprehend and look at how ruthless Cheney is. ... A person like that would do anything."
Roberts final suggestion was that, in the absence of a massive popular outcry, "the only constraints on what's going to happen will come from the federal bureaucracy and perhaps the military. They may have had enough. They may not go along with it."
Listen to the complete audio of the interview here.
The ruling, which came in one of the main court cases dealing with the fate of the detainees, effectively set the ground rules for scores of cases by detainees challenging the actions of Pentagon tribunals that decide whether terror suspects should be held as enemy combatants.
It was the latest of a series of stinging legal challenges to the administration’s detention policies that have amplified pressure on the Bush administration to find some alternative to Guantánamo, where about 360 men are now being held.
A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Washington unanimously rejected a government effort to limit the information it must turn over to the court and lawyers for the detainees.
I don't believe that any American would be against us holding these people if it could be proven that they are indeed terrorists. The problem I have is when the government refuses to provide any evidence to support the claims that they are making. The first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 resulted in the criminal prosecution of those involved. If they have the proof why are they so hesitant to display it? With a government as distrusted as the Bush administration, we need as much information as we can get to determine if we are holding the right people.
I heard someone say "If the government has nothing to hide then why are they hiding everything". Truer words could not have been spoken about the Bush administration.
The al-Qaeda terrorist network has been regenerating its ability to carry out attacks on US soil by finding refuge in a remote region of Pakistan, a US intelligence report released Tuesday said.
Al-Qaeda's top operatives and leadership have found safe-haven in Pakistan's frontier areas near the border with Afghanistan, a region referred to as the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where the government exercises little control, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) said.
Am I the only one that remembers when President Bush said any country that harbors terrorists will be dealt with by the United States? Instead he attacked Iraq, a country that did not harbor terrorists. You will hear people point to Saddam Hussein's payments to the families of suicide bombers as proof of his involvement with terrorists. The goverment of Saudi Arabia does exactly the same thing and 14 of the 19 hijackers of 9/11 were Saudi yet no military action was taken on the Saudi government. This is exactly the same thing that is happening with Pakistan while we continue the drumbeat for war with Iran.
When will the American people finally realize that our citizens are being used as pawns in a very dangerous game. If premptive war is fine for Iraq then why haven't they used the military to attack the training camps now flourishing in Pakistan? Possibly no money can be made by attacking Pakistan since they are not known for their oil reserves and Saudi Arabian military purchases are already enriching American firms with ties to the Bush administration. The empty rhetoric of the Bush administration has left America more vulnerable to terrorism but has enriched his cronies. That simple fact alone should be grounds for impeachment.
Britain's most senior generals have issued a blunt warning to Downing Street that the military campaign in Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic failure, a development that could lead to an Islamist government seizing power in neighbouring Pakistan. Amid fears that London and Washington are taking their eye off Afghanistan as they grapple with Iraq, the generals have told Number 10 that the collapse of the government in Afghanistan, headed by Hamid Karzai, would present a grave threat to the security of Britain.
It is good to see a newspaper reporting what I have been saying since I started this site. This is due to a colossal failure of the Bush administration when they decided to participate in the biggest heist of natural resources in world history instead of actually destroying the real enemy.
When your Republican friends tell you that they feel safer now than before 9/11 please have them read this. I doubt it will do any good but you can try. They seem to live in a fantasy world of good and evil where good always triumphs. In the real world evil in the form of terrorism is evident but evil in the form of foreign policy is debated as people around the world die. I beleive that terrorism in any form is evil and that includes what we did to the people of Iraq. Is there anyone who still belives that our reason for the invasion of Iraq was actually nuclear weapons when Pakistan has always been a country that harbored terrorists and has had nuclear capabilities for some time? You can dress a pig up but its still a pig. That is our policy in Iraq and the consequences are being felt all the way to Pakistan.
Militants in the Afghan border region disavowed a 10-month old truce with the government that critics said gave them a safe haven from which to launch attacks on Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
I have been writing extensively on Pakistan. I believe it to be the most dangerous nation on earth. When we invaded Iraq and took the troops out of Afghanistan we in effect destabilized Pakistan. Now the results of that destabilization are being felt. If Pakistan falls to the terrorists it will almost surely lead to some sort of nuclear conflict. Pakistan is a nuclear country and if their government falls we could be looking at a terrorist controlled country with a military and nuclear capabilities.
My question is why no one seems to be talking about this in these terms. Are they afraid of giving the American people the truth or are they just afraid that the American people will finally figure out that the Bush administration has been responsible for creating an ever more dangerous world.
He said President Bush's war-fighting policies have left the United States at greater risk from terrorists. The first-term Illinois senator said decisions by the Republican president had allowed Osama bin Laden and his deputies to elude capture.
"We cannot win a war against the terrorists if we're on the wrong battlefield," Obama said. "America must urgently begin deploying from Iraq and take the fight more effectively to the enemy's home by destroying al-Qaida's leadership along the Afghan-Pakistan border, eliminating their command and control networks and disrupting their funding."
This is what all the Democratic candidates need to be saying. The fact is that the war in Iraq has diverted us from the real enemy while creating hundreds of thousands more. Nothing makes me want to scream more than those who keep talking about terrorists now in Iraq. They always forget to mention that they were not there until we invaded. Our Middle East policies are the reason for their intense hatred for us. If you believe that they simply hate us for our freedom then you are simply unable to understand the world around us. Unfortunately people in that category include this dim witted President.
The bin Laden clip, which lasted less than a minute, was part of a 40-minute video featuring purported al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan paying tribute to fellow militants who have been killed in the country.
Bin Laden glorified those who die in the name of jihad, or holy war, saying even the Prophet Muhammad "had been wishing to be a martyr."
"The happy (man) is the one that God has chosen him to be a martyr," added bin Laden, who was shown outdoors wearing army fatigues and looking tired.
The authenticity of the video could not be verified, but it appeared on a Web site commonly used by Islamic militants and carried the logo of as-Sahab, al-Qaida's media production wing. It was not immediately clear when the video of bin Laden was filmed.
Everyone reading this report should remember that Bin Laden was the one responsible for 9/11 but was allowed to escape at Tora Bora. What John Kerry said during the 2004 election was absolutely correct. We also had the chance to catch Ayman al-Zawahri and we did not. Remember that when al-Qaida strikes again. Stupidity has consequences and when the President of the United States is an intellectual lightweight this is the result.
We Could Have Had Al-Qaeda's Number 3 But We Did Nothing
When you hear people say how Bill Clinton could have had Osama Bin Laden three times and did nothing tell them to read this post on AMERICAblog.
There is one set of rules for the Clinton Administration and a completely different set for the Bush Administration. Mistakes were certainly made by the Clinton Administration but how anyone can still claim our current situation is the fault of Bill Clinton either is a complete partisan or a complete fool.
They had Ayman al-Zawahri and decided not to go after him because they did not want to anger the governement of Pakistan. It is OK to overthrow a government and destroy their infrastructure while lying to your own people about the reasons but you are worried about the diplomatic problems of killing one of those responsible for 9/11. If you believe that I have a former NY Mayor you should vote for in the next Presidential election.
If you still beleive we are safer now than we were on September 10, 2001 then you are living in a fools paradise.
Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri urged Pakistanis to revolt against President Pervez Musharraf following the storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, in an audiotape posted Thursday on the Internet.
"I call upon the Ulama (Muslim clergy) in Pakistan... Musharraf and his hunting dogs have tarnished your honour in service of the crusades and the Jews," Zawahiri said, after stating that he was speaking on the "occasion of the criminal aggression" on the mosque.
"If you do not revolt, Musharraf will annihilate you. Musharraf will not stop until he uproots Islam from Pakistan," he added.
Remember my words, Pakistan could become the most dangerous nation on Earth if Musharraf is toppled. Pakistan is nuclear and Al-Qaeda is stronger because George W. Bush decided to get involved in the biggest heist in world history instead of destroying the group that had actually attacked us. How many American lives will be lost when the inevitable happens and we need to disarm a now hostile nuclear Pakistan?
Do you remember after September 11, 2001 when President Bush said that those who attacked us would be hunted down and smoked out of their caves? Well the result after nearly six years is not so much.
Six years after the Bush administration declared war on al-Qaeda, the terrorist network is gaining strength and has established a safe haven in remote tribal areas of western Pakistan for training and planning attacks, according to a new Bush administration intelligence report to be discussed today at a White House meeting.
The report, a five-page threat assessment compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center, is titled "Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West," intelligence officials said. It concludes that the group has significantly rebuilt itself despite concerted U.S. attempts to smash the network.
The question we need to be asking is whether this war in Iraq has limited our ability to dismantle Al-Qaida. The answer is a resounding yes and the fault for this lies with the Bush administration. Before the War in Iraq Al-Qaida was not a presence within Iraq but now has a strong foothold and is one of the major stumbling blocks to stabilizing the country.
Pakisatan which harbors this group in the remote tribal areas has nuclear capabilities and could overnight become the most dangerous nation on earth if the government of Pervez Musharraf was to fall into rebel hands.
Should the United States be hit with another terrorist attack it will be the incompetence of the Bush administration that will be partially responsible. Instead of concentrating on the group that actually attacked us they chose to orchestrate the biggest heist in world history with the theft of the Iraqi oil.
The American people need to take the time to understand the issues as they currently stand. Our media has let us down so it is our responsibility as citizens to educate ourselves and take appropriate action.
Ali Mussa Daqduq, an explosives expert, was captured in March in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, where he was helping train and lead Shiite militias fighting coalition troops, U.S. intelligence officials told CNN.
Daqduq pretended to be deaf and mute when captured, and his identity was not known for weeks, the officials said.
Intelligence officials say Daqduq is one of Hezbollah's top special operations commanders, an expert in the use of roadside bombs. The Americans say he, along with the Iraqi militia commanders he worked with, has admitted working with Iran's elite Quds Force special operations unit.
Will the United States use this information to gain public support for military action against Iran? If we do use this information to start military action, will we do the same against Saudi Arabia which has long been suspected in funding Sunni insurgents within Iraq?
The justices did not say what had changed their minds. The Bush administration had praised the court's earlier decision not to review the matter.
At the time, only three of four justices necessary to grant review--David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer--were willing to take the two cases involved, saying "these questions deserve this court's immediate attention.'' Two other justices, John Paul Stevens and Anthony M. Kennedy, issued a statement saying they might want to hear the issue in the future.
The court consolidated two cases, Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. U.S., and will hear them together sometime after its new term begins next October. In addition, the court said it would consult the findings of the D.C. circuit appeals court in two other pending cases in which detainees challenge the judgment of the military tribunals that determined them to be enemy combatants.
The court has considered the rights of detainees twice in the last three years, ruling both times against the administration.
This is good news from a Court that has recently turned far to the right with the addition of Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.
The United States has always stood for freedom and equal justice under the law. How can we just hold people without charge for as long as we want? This sounds more like the tactics of a dictatorship than a democracy. Military tribunals without public oversight is not the image we want to present to the world. If the people being held are terrorists, prove it in a court of law. The first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 resulted in the arrest and convictions of those involved. If we do not return to our democratic roots than the terrorists have won by changing the very definition of what it means to be American. Free and open trials are the backbone of our democracy and if the detainees are truly terrorists then provide the evidence in open court.
The device, consisting of 200 liters of fuel, gas cylinders and nails linked to a triggering mechanism, was found in a car in Haymarket, in the city's busy nightclub and theater district shortly before 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Friday.
British police anti-terror chief Peter Clarke said the explosives would have resulted in significant injury and loss of life had they detonated
A stretch of road near Buckingham Palace in London has also been closed due to a suspicious vehicle. there is no word yet if this is another car bomb or a false alarm. I will post more information as it becomes available.
The Government Accountability Office found that in one country a lack of clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency may have compromised several investigations intended to identify and disrupt potential terrorist activities.
The GAO did not name the country in its report.
The White House has long issued directives asking that U.S. law enforcement agencies assist foreign nations' anti-terrorism efforts.
But the report finds that embassy and law enforcement officials told the GAO "they had received little or no guidance" on how to accomplish that.
The issue of roles and responsibilities "remains unresolved and is still subject to ongoing debates within the administration," it said.
The 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism instructed the State Department to develop and coordinate U.S. counterterrorism policy abroad, but the report says that was not done.
The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act shifted that responsibility to the National Counterterrorism Center and, although a general plan has been drafted, it has not yet been implemented.
"As a result of these weaknesses, LEAs [law enforcement agencies], a key element of national power, are not being fully used abroad to protect U.S. citizens and interest from future terrorist attacks," the GAO concluded.
For national security reasons, the GAO did not name the four countries its investigators visited, describing them only as having "key roles in combating terrorism."
In all four there was more U.S. funding devoted to fighting drugs than to fighting terrorism, the report said
In one country, described as an "extremely high terrorist threat to American interests globally," the State Department provided six times more funding to stop illicit drugs and crime than it did for anti-terrorism assistance, the report said.
In another country, an embassy official said most training and assistance funding from the U.S. was dedicated to counter-narcotics efforts "even though drugs were no longer a strategic concern in that country."
Also, the report revealed that information about terrorists is not always shared or acted on.
Generally, embassies retain "pre-9/11 structures" for information-sharing and collaboration, the report said, and have not been reconfigured "in a collective effort to prevent another terrorist attack on the United States or its interests."
An "extremely high terrorist threat," nation had never been asked to try to identify or disrupt any of the terrorists on the most-wanted lists of the departments of State or Defense, or of the foreign nation itself, an FBI official told the GAO.
The agencies involved blamed these discrepancies on shortages in staffing and funding, according to the report.
It has been over 5 years since 9/11 and the same problems still exist. Do you still feel safer?
The spokesman, Zabiyullah Mujahed, said Taleban were recovering after Nato had infiltrated the group and killed some of its leaders.
But more people were volunteering to carry out suicide bombings, he said.
This is the result of a failed policy that thought a war in Iraq was more important than actually destroying the group that attacked us on 9/11. Now the world has lost respect for the United States and would be less willing to help us stabilize Afghanistan.
Correspondents say that the south of the country has this year seen the worst violence since the Taleban were ousted from power in 2001 by an international coalition.
During the 2004 election John Kerry pointed out the situation in Afghanistan when he said that we had taken our eye off the ball. The media proceeded to trash him instead of doing their job and validating what he was saying. This led to his defeat and the current mess in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Taliban military commander who led the "graduation ceremony" for 300 suicide bombers was one of five men released from an Afghanistan prison earlier this year in exchange for a kidnapped Italian Journalist.
The Government of Afghanistan would never have released this man without the express consent of our government.
Remember that when the first bombing happens in NYC, Montreal, Berlin or London. Our policies have made us more vulnerable to attack. The War in Iraq took the focus away from a mad man like this and Osama Bin Laden so that our oil companies could get their hands on the reserves of Iraq. This is criminal, truly criminal.
If there is another attack on United States soil will people rally around the President or will they rightly blame him for letting Osama and his henchmen go?
As the operation proceeded, a truck bomb exploded at a Shiite mosque in central Baghdad today, killing 75 people and wounding more than 200, The Associated Press reported. Gunfire erupted shortly after the blast, which a police officer said went off near the Khillani mosque in the commercial area of Sinak, according to the A.P.
The coalition offensive, begun last night, is aimed at blunting the persistent car and suicide bombings that have terrorized Iraqis and thwarted political reconciliation.
We are constantly being told of Iran's involvment yet it is the Sunni insurgents who are being targeted. The Sunni insurgents are supported by Saudi Arabia which is a majority Sunni muslim population. Where is the talk of military action against Saudi Arabia? The silence is deafening.
The Iraq War is a business deal gone bad with American taxpayers footing the bill and the Iraqi people and our brave soldiers having to suffer the daily death and destruction that the policies of the Bush Adminstration has brought.
Taliban fighters seized Miya Nishin district in Kandahar province late Monday, provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai said. Authorities were planning to retake the remote area.
In neighboring Uruzgan province's Chora district — home to more than 100,000 people — fighting continued between NATO and Afghan forces and militants who attacked police posts in the province's main town on Saturday. Some officials reported dozens of civilian casualties.
This is the result of the Bush Administration deciding that a war with Iraq was more important than actually destroying the group that was responsible for 9/11.
How this fact can be lost in the media discussions is unfathomable. The people of Afghanistan put their faith in the United States to liberate them and make their lives better. The one problem for the Afghan people was that they were not awash in oil reserves.
We are now losing two wars and draining our treasury with no end in sight. The effects of the Bush Administration will be felt around the world for the next decade and may forever tarnish the good name of the United States.
Sunday's attack is the deadliest by insurgents since the fall of the Taliban. In September 2002, 30 people were killed and 167 wounded in a Kabul car bombing. In February, a suicide bomber detonated explosives himself outside the main U.S. base at Bagram Air Field, killing 23 people, during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney.
We must all remember that the increased violence in Afghanistan is the result of the War in Iraq and our redeployment of troops from Afghanistan to Iraq.
Did no one in the White House envision this result for Afghanistan? How can anything this adminstration say be taken seriously when everything they have touched has led to even greater disaster? The War in Iraq has been a recruitment tool for terrorists for the next generation. We promised the people of Afghanistan a better life when we removed the Taliban yet the Taliban is now back in control of whole areas of the country.
How can anyone respect our military might when we can not control two third world countries? Our foreign policy has been a complete disaster and has made us less safe as a result.
'There is the potential rosy Pakistan next spring, with some sort of negotiated relationship where the military feel reasonably comfortable with a new civilian government,' he said, adding, 'But that is if we get that far. For the Chief Justice issue crisis, the political debate, the street protests that have been associated with that, people are raising questions about Musharraf's stability in a way that I have not quite heard before.'
Another analyst Spencer Ackerman says that both within the US intelligence community and in Pakistan, there's a growing belief that Musharraf's days are drawing to a close- and possibly within the next few months.
What would a new goverment in Pakistan look like? The Pakistani people are vehemently Anti-American and Islamic fundamentalists operate freely in many parts of the country and they already possess nuclear capabilities. If the goverment falls into radical hands they could overnight become the most dangerous nation on earth.
When I first heard this I thought this can't be possible but it is. Have we learned absolutely nothing from our years of arming the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan?
American commanders say they have successfully tested the strategy in Anbar Province west of Baghdad and have held talks with Sunni groups in at least four areas of central and north-central Iraq where the insurgency has been strong. In some cases, the American commanders say, the Sunni groups are suspected of involvement in past attacks on American troops or of having links to such groups. Some of these groups, they say, have been provided, usually through Iraqi military units allied with the Americans, with arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies.
Most of our troops have been killed by Iraqi insurgents. What is to stop them from turning our own weapons on our soldiers. This administration is criminally negligent and should be removed.
In a major setback for Bush's policies in the war on terrorism adopted after the September 11 attacks, the appellate panel ruled 2-1 the U.S. government had no evidence to treat Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri as an "enemy combatant." The court ordered him released from military custody.
"The government cannot subject al-Marri to indefinite military detention. For in the United States, the military cannot seize and imprison civilians -- let alone imprison them indefinitely," Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote.
I am all for holding terrorism suspects but you must have evidence to do it. The idea that the American Government can and will hold people at will for years with no files charged is frightening. It is a complete departure from what we are as a nation and as a people. If the Government feels that someone is a terrorist then they need to prove that in a court of law. Without that protection, what is to stop them from doing that to you or me?
Those who say it is necessary to win the war on terrorism must realize if we resort to those tactics, we have already lost.
US authorities said Saturday they had averted an attack that could have resulted in "unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction," and charged four alleged Islamic radicals with conspiracy to cause an explosion at the airport.
John Goglia, a former member of National Transportation Safety Board, said that if the plot had ever been carried out, it would likely have sparked a fire but little else, and certainly not the mass carnage authorities described.
"You could definitely reach the tank, definitely start the fire, but to get the kind of explosion that they were thinking that they were going to get... this is virtually impossible to do," he told AFP.
Now the real question should be what news were they trying to hide by breaking this story? Could it be the resignation of Tim Griffin who is becoming embroiled in the US Attorney firings? Seems Mr. Griffin was involved in a practice called caging which is a way to disenfranchise voters. Now that is the type of person we need as a US Attorney. Wake up America you are being duped once again.
The plot, which the men code-named "Chicken Farm," never got past the planning stages, authorities said.
"The devastation that would be caused had this plot succeeded is just unthinkable," U.S. Attorney Roslynn R. Mauskopf said at a news conference, calling it "one of the most chilling plots imaginable."
Despite their "extraordinary efforts," the men never obtained any explosives, authorities said
Is it just me or does it seem that every time the news from Iraq worsens we are hit with some terror plot. This is the second one for the NY area in as many months. The last one targeted Fort Dix in New Jersey and that plot was also just in
